


Fun

by rants_skellington



Series: Fucking it Up [1]
Category: Saints Row
Genre: M/M, Porn with Feelings, boss and johnny being idiots, extreme awkwardness, having to be honest about your feelings and kind of wanting to fall through the earth, really horrible wet dreams, terrible blowjobs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-28
Updated: 2015-09-28
Packaged: 2018-04-23 19:59:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4890181
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rants_skellington/pseuds/rants_skellington
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Everything with you is fun,” Boss said, possibly sarcastically, but like even he himself didn’t know how sincere he was. </p><p>Johnny snorted, looked away from Boss for a second, tried to brush it off like a joke and then realised he wasn’t sure if the Boss had been joking. He didn’t know if he wanted the Boss to be joking.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fun

**Author's Note:**

> This was written as part of an art trade w/ [my friend!](http://vinkumakkara.tumblr.com) They drew me some [gorgeous art of my Boss Nicolæ](http://vinkumakkara.tumblr.com/post/128417177106), and I wrote about their own Boss Slim having this horrendously awkward one-night stand. 
> 
> The fic takes place between the end of Saints Row 2 and the beginning of the Saints Row 2 dlc so this is immediately after the Saints took over the city but before they acquire Ultor. I could go into a really detailed conversation about the exact time line and the references in the fic to the dlc but I'll spare you, count yourselves lucky.

“Look at this gun,” the Boss said, holding what looked like a modified AR-50 XMAC with an enhanced scope and grenade launcher. He was rubbing his hand over the gun, pumping it up and down almost lazily. “It’s so big. But not as big as your dick.”

Johnny nodded in silent agreement as Boss slowly ran his tongue up the barrel of a McManus 2010 he hadn’t been holding a minute ago but was now. There were so many guns. Massive guns, that the Boss had lying in piles around him. Huge guns.

“But none of them are as big as your dick,” the Boss said reassuringly. Johnny nodded again. Boss was so right. He wanted the Boss to start touching himself, next. Boss dutifully pushed a hand down the front of his loose-fitting jeans, still with one hand on a five-foot rocket launcher. He moaned, mouth slightly open, eyes fixed on Johnny the whole time with a lustful intensity that was ripped from the faces of the finest porn stars.

“You should fuck me,” the Boss said. “With your huge cock. And all of these guns.”

Johnny was aware then, like it had been the case the whole time and he had simply not observed it, that he was rock hard. The Boss would be willing to do anything to help him with that, he knew, but he was enjoying just watching the Boss grinding against a minigun. The Boss was so desperate for him. The Boss needed him.

“Of course I do,” the Boss said. “You’re the best Saint ever, and super badass.”

“Hell yeah,” Johnny said.

“No one could ever beat Johnny Gat,” the Boss said.

“Hell yeah,” Johnny said again. He was vaguely aware they were in Purgatory and he couldn’t help but wonder, in some distant part of his mind, where everyone else was. He settled back in the white couch and ignored the questioning voice. It was only there to ruin his fun.

The Boss was leaning over him now, one hand on the arm of the chair and the other on his cock. Boss was so close to cumming just from thinking about him. He was so ready. Boss’ mouth was right next to his, their lips almost touching, Boss groaning over and over, so close he could –

* * *

Johnny woke up. He blinked a few times, body stiff from sleep and mind foggy and disorganised. For a minute or two his head was too full of clouds for any coherent thought, but as that lifted and he became more aware of himself and his surroundings he was suddenly forced into an unpleasant understanding. The memory of his dream was crawling back into his brain and leaving him feeling like his own subconscious was playing a sick joke on him. You haven’t gotten laid in a while? Surprise! Here’s you fucking your best friend. No, not even fucking the Boss, just getting off on watching him.

“What the fuck?” He said, as though he was trying to defend his own thoughts to himself. He knew that no one else would ever have to know about this, but on the other hand he had to live with the knowledge of this dream and would have to live with it forever. He was going to have to find some way to make himself deliberately forget. There was no explaining away this dream, there was no analysing it. The only thing to do was to pretend it had never happened.

Johnny stumbled out of bed and towards the kitchenette, his knee stiff and complaining. That would wear off. The weird sickness in the pit of his stomach would wear off. And, hopefully, the pulsating pain in the back of his head would wear off and take the dream with it. Because he had enough shit going on without this too. He filled the sink with water, rubbed some on his face like it would clean the headache away.

“It never happened,” he said to his reflection the water. The reflection offered no response, just stared at him in sleepy-eyed silence, disheveled and stupid looking. He needed to shave, needed to fix his hair, needed a shower. Then he’d be back to normal. Mostly back to normal. The shades would probably hide the rings around his eyes. It would do. He needed to get over to Purgatory. If there was one good thing about living in the Boss’ red light loft, it was being close to Purgatory. That was probably the only good thing about it. You could put a bed in a hole in the ground and it was still a hole in the ground. At least it was away. At least it wasn’t Aisha’s house.

* * *

“I just wanna know, what’s our next move?” Pierce said.

“We don’t have to make any moves,” Shaundi said. “You need to relax, Pierce. Everything’s fine. We got the whole city on a plate. Right Boss?”

“Right,” the Boss said. The others waited for him to add something else onto this but he declined, staring past them and at nothing in particular.

Sitting in what passed for an office in Purgatory – with its very own office stripper pole – you could see through the purple-tinted fish tank or through the huge glass doors and out over Purgatory’s main floor. It was full. It was always full, these days. Not just with Saints, but increasingly with outsiders. Fans. People who either wanted to be a Saint or fuck a Saint. Which seemed to be more and more of Stilwater now Ultor was gone. It was nice, to get the respect Boss felt he deserved. At the same time it was weird, not getting shit from people over the Saints being jokes, upstarts, losers who needed to put in their place. People still had to think that, but you didn’t get the harassment in the street that you used to. In what city other than Stilwater did you get grandmothers telling off gangsters in the street for killing ‘that nice Jessica girl’?

“Right,” Shaundi said again. “So all we need to worry about is getting fat and rich.”

“I’m just saying we need to be keeping our eyes open in case someone sneaks up on us,” Pierce said. “We don’t wanna get caught off-guard.”

“Now you’re just being paranoid,” Shaundi said.

She looked to Boss, waiting for some derisive comment, but he just folded his arms, leaned back further into his chair and looked like he was about ready to sink through the ground and down into his own grave he was so bored.

“Are you alright?” She said.

Boss considered this question, considered brushing it off, and ended up being honest.

“I’m not used to being able to sit around this much,” he said. “Normally there’s always… Something.”

“I don’t know what’s wrong with you two. This has to be the first time you’ve been able to get sleep in months, cut yourself a break.”

“I slept just fine thinking the Brotherhood could break into my apartment any time and kill me,” Boss said. “Now the only thing that’s going to kill me is boredom.”

Shaundi rolled her eyes. She’d found success to her liking. She wasn’t against some hard work but it was nice, being rich. Being famous. Having people who knew you and thought you were… Awesome. Badass. Any number of other words to emphasise that they were incredible people who do impossible things. She got free drugs and drinks out of it. It suited her.

Pierce had decided it wasn’t enough. He wanted to do something with his new-found infamy. He’d been around when the Vice Kings had built their empire and he envied that; the building of a career out of nothing. He wanted to do something else, do something more. What was the point of being rich if you weren’t doing anything with it?

And Boss… Boss saw Johnny then, walking down the steps into Purgatory, and any kind of introspection suddenly lost all appeal. There were so many other, better things to do with Johnny than think. He was almost swaggering down the steps, giving a nod to a couple of other Saints and fans, looking like he had exactly nothing he cared about in the entire world. Boss envied it a little. Like he always had. Johnny made it all look so easy. Boss didn’t really know how you defined ‘it all’ but Johnny never looked like anything had ever bothered him in his entire life. He knew instinctively that this was not true but it wasn’t about what you really thought. It was about what you looked like to everyone else.

“Hey,” Johnny said to the Boss. “You wanna go get a drink?”

“Yes,” Boss said, immediately. He did now. He hadn’t been thinking about it before but now he did, wanted to get a drink with Johnny. Nothing sounded better.

Pierce rolled his eyes, him and Shaundi lapsing back into the usual catty back and forth while Boss stood up from the desk, made his way out of the room to Johnny. They’d been planning to have a meeting, the four of them, but that had fallen apart. What was there to having a meeting about? Boss only wanted to hold them out of habit, more than anything. There wasn’t anything to plan for anymore. Nothing to fight back against, nothing to attack, nothing to take over. It was their city, and they stood unopposed.

Being unopposed was boring.

“Where to?” Boss said, climbing in the driver’s seat of his white Baron.

“Tee’N’Ay, where else?” Johnny said, falling into the passenger seat.

“I dunno, Technically Legal? Freckle Bitch’s?”

“They got beer at Freckle Bitch’s now?”

“They got anything you want if you’ve got a gun.”

“Ah, you’re funny.”

“I try.”

Tee’N’Ay was the same as it had been… Not always, but the same as it had been since Boss had woken up and that was almost something. Nothing was the same as it had been. Not Stilwater, not the Row, not his friends. Not even a fucking strip club. And that was something he’d long ago tried to stop thinking about. Didn’t do any good to dwell.

Tee’N’Ay smelt like sweat and stale air and cheap alcohol. It was relatively empty, being barely two o’clock in the afternoon, and Johnny took a seat at the bar. Boss sat next to him, ordered two beers. No one spoke at first, sat in the musty dimness of the club with the music playing through static. Johnny ripped the Rutherford Liquors label off his beer, the paper of the label wet from condensation, tearing easily. He didn’t have any nails left, ripped down to the quick. Boss didn’t know what to think of that so he didn’t think anything.

“When was the last time you actually got a cold beer in Tee’N’Ay?” Boss said lightly. “Used to think this place didn’t even have a fridge.”

“Yeah, being a Saint has finally paid off,” Johnny said, voice uncharacteristically flat.

“Are you alright?” Boss said. Johnny glanced at him oddly, shrugged, took a swig of beer.

“How’s living in Purgatory full-time?” Johnny said.

“It’s fine,” Boss said.

“You don’t want the Red Light loft back?”

“No, man. You stay there. You need it.”

Something about that rubbed Johnny the wrong way but he didn’t say anything, just taking another drink from his bottle of beer and not watching the girls dancing. Johnny didn’t want to talk. Johnny wanted to get drunk. He didn’t like the idea of needing anything, especially not something from someone else. Even his best friend.

Their arms touched for a second when they both put down beers at the same moment and Johnny flinched away instinctively. He didn’t know if Boss had noticed.

Boss had. He said nothing about it.

“Purgatory has all my old stuff anyway,” Boss said.

“I thought you threw all that out,” Johnny said.

“No,” Boss said. “What, after I made you hang onto it all for five fucking years?”

“You didn’t make me,” Johnny said. “Someone had to keep all your stupid crap.”

“Didn’t manage to keep the cars though, did you? Price’s mansion?”

“They didn’t fit in Eesh’s attic.”

“If you aren’t willing to put a house inside a smaller house for me I don’t know what kind of friend you really are.”

Johnny laughed and got the next round. Boss relaxed a little. He was never sure when a joke was going to land and when it was going to be an elevator full of disapproval and confusion about how he could talk now. He didn’t care so much anymore generally, but you never really got over that part of yourself that wanted to make sure your best friend still liked you.

“Pierce still bugging you for the next plan?” Johnny said.

“Yeah,” Boss said. “Got any ideas?”

“We blow up the Phillips building.”

“That’s not such a bad idea.”

“No, we blow up the Police Station.”

“They’ve fucking got it coming.”

“No, no we get a tank, you with me so far?”

“Yeah, ok.”

Johnny started laughing and Boss stared at him in confusion, wondering what it was he’d said.

“What?”

“You just gonna agree with everything I say?” Johnny said.

“I dunno,” Boss said. “You make it all sound like so much fun.”

Johnny drained his bottle in two gulps. Boss still hadn’t finished his first. “It’s your round.”

“Not that I don’t like drinking in the middle of the day,” Boss said, “but what’s making you so thirsty?”

“Nothing,” Johnny said. “Been a while is all.”

“Been awhile since what?”

“Shut the fuck up and buy me another beer.”

“You want me to get you drunk?”

“I want you to buy me a drink! Don’t be a tight-wad.”

“You want me to buy you a drink? Should I get you a cocktail, princess?”

Johnny gave him a look that could have burnt paint off steel but Boss was unabashed, holding a fresh bottle of beer between forefinger and thumb and waving it tauntingly at Johnny. Johnny lunged for it but missed, Boss yanking it away at last minute, laughing. He put the still-full bottle to his own lips, about to take a sip, only for Johnny to take hold and yank it away from him, spilling some of the beer across the counter top. The larger crept outwards slowly and dripped off the edge, onto Boss’ jeans.

“Nice one, asshole,” Boss said.

“Just use your hat to mop it up if it matters that much,” Johnny said, taking a drink from his bottle of beer.

“Use your head to mop it up.”

“Like to see you try.”

“You think I couldn’t take you in a fight?”

“Oh I know you couldn’t take me.”

Boss smiled, all tooth and suggestion and Johnny realised there was something a little more charged in that statement than he’d intended. Or maybe he had intended it, on some subconscious level. It didn’t bear thinking about. He was already planning to get the next round.

* * *

“You’re such a fucking lightweight,” Johnny said, grinning sloppily.

“I’m not,” Boss said. “Fuck you. I’ve drunk just as much as you.”

“And you’re fucking wasted man.”

“So are… So are you capullo.”

“Fucking cap you. Cap you right in the ass.”

Johnny shook his head violently like that was going to sober him up any. He only succeeded in making himself dizzy, leaning on Boss’ shoulder as they walked out of Tee’N’Ay. They were only leaving now because the bartender wouldn’t serve them anymore, something Boss had taken as a personal affront. But even he wasn’t going to pick a fight with the bartender at one of the only good bars in town. He’d already got himself unofficially barred from Club Koi. They wouldn’t really kick him out but they sure as hell didn’t make him feel very welcome. Apparently inviting all of Ultor’s Masako troops to come with you on a night out didn’t do a business any favours.

“That last girl would have gone home with you,” Boss said. “Definitely.”

“Whatever,” Johnny said. “You got drinks back at Purgatory?”

“Yeah. Yeah, let’s go.”

They walked. Fuck knows why. Boss normally didn’t care about driving in this kind of state but Johnny was the one who walked off first, like he was in a real rush to get back to Purgatory on time. Boss just went with it, not in any real mood to be asking too many questions. He was happy to follow for Johnny for now. It felt like old times almost. He crushed that thought before it rambled off somewhere dark and took him down with it. What the fuck was he getting all nostalgic for? What the hell could he possibly want that he didn’t have right now?

“We’re better Saints than fuckin’… Anyone ever was,” Boss said to Johnny. “The others didn’t know what they were talking about.”

“What?” Johnny said, frowning at him. He wasn’t following any line of thought, let alone the ramble Boss was spiraling down into.

“The others,” Boss said, swinging his arm behind him like the Saints lieutenants of old were clustered on the sidewalk. “They didn’t know what they were talking about. They made fun of us. Of you. We fucking showed them. We showed all of them.”

Johnny snorted unattractively with laughter.

“Who made fun of us?” He said. “No one’s laughing at us. We’re the Third Street Saints.”

“Yeah… Johnny… Johnny do you remember the Third Street Vice Kings?”

Johnny groaned, rubbed his hand on his face.

“What?” Boss called after him as Johnny sped up, walking faster back to Purgatory. “Y-you’re Ben King’s nephew right? You couldn’t have forgotten about the Third Street Vice Kings!”

“Shut the hell up!”

“You never could lie for shit, Gat.”

The Boss caught up to Johnny, the two of them walking in step. Johnny grinned at him, quickly, then fell into something a little more pensive.

“What do you mean people made fun of us?” He said.

“You know,” Boss said. “Julius. Dex. Even… Fuckin’ Troy man. They laughed at us.”

“Who cares what they think?” Johnny said, wondering why he’d never really noticed the mockery and deciding he didn’t care. “None of them are leading the Saints now, are they?”

“Fuck no.”

“Now who’s laughing? The only thing that matters is what we think.”

They reached Purgatory and headed to the Boss’ room. You could still hear people in the rest of the club when you shut the door and Johnny really wished you couldn’t, really wished that the door was soundproof. How did the Boss sleep every night with all that noise? The traffic in Red Light upset Johnny’s sleep a lot. He’d gotten used to how quiet the Suburbs were really fast. After a couple of years in prison you’d have thought he could sleep through anything but he supposed he was a more delicate flower than he liked to pretend.

“I’m going to check the bar downstairs for beer,” Boss said.

Johnny sat on the bed as Boss stumbled off. He’d sobered up on the walk over, more than he liked. He’d wanted to get blackout drunk. He’d wanted to be so drunk he passed out on Tee’N’Ay’s floor and woke up there the next morning because everyone was too afraid to shift him. He wasn’t sure why. He laid back on the bed and stared up at the white ceiling. It was strange to think it hadn’t been very long ago when this place had been a rotting shell full of shanty towns and Samedi, the rooms only lit with campfires. Now there was electricity, there were stripper poles, the Boss had a hot tub in the corner of their apartment. The Samedi didn’t even exist anymore. They had a neon purple nightclub and nothing to worry about.

Boss came back in looking guilty, Johnny staring up at him and seeing that his hands contained exactly zero alcohols.

“Where’s the drinks?” Johnny said.

“Couldn’t find anything no one else had already drunk,” Boss said.

Johnny rolled his eyes, and Boss lay down on the bed next to him. Boss contemplated suggesting a run to Brown Baggers but fuck, that was so much effort. The two of them lay side by side and studied the bright violet of the walls. The cleanness of the sharp purple combined with the polished whites made everything look like a catalog display room, the furniture and layout carefully chosen to reflect the opulent wealth of the owner without any thought put into making it look like it was somewhere someone actually lived. Which was, of course, the point. Boss was a big shot now and needed to look like one.

Something about the pristine wealth of the place in comparison to the wreck it had been when they founded it eerily reminded them both of the Church. They both felt it, although neither said anything, neither thought to mention the matching purple and white colour schemes, cold lighting and detached nature of the design; the desire to shape a monument to the owners’ success out of what had been worthless. Something that had been made to show other people how powerful you were. Johnny remembered Boss’ old crib, the one room garbage dump in Saint’s Row. Even for the brief period when the Saints had been riding high on success, it had stayed looking just as much of a dump as it always had. He thought that the Boss probably liked it that way. It had been more private somehow, the crib in the Row. No one else had ever been there — no other Saints, no strippers, not like the cribs now, always flooded with people. It was just Boss’ place to crash. And Boss still had all the old stuff, somewhere.

“What are we going to do now?” Johnny said. “Who do we have left to fight?”

“Don’t know,” Boss said.

“Yo, we can’t just do nothin’ man. I’ll lose it.”

“Yeah, me too.”

“We should rob a bank or something.”

Boss laughed, just the once, a harsh bark of a laugh. “Why?”

“What? Am I not making that sound like fun?”

The last word was not said in anger, not mocking, but in a manner that was gently provocative. He was trying to get a reaction from Boss, although he wasn’t really sure what he was going to get. Boss turned his head and found Johnny was already looking back at him, face turned profile to the mattress, the two of them much closer than he had realised before. Johnny’s dark eyes were sharp underneath his glasses, not fogged with too much alcohol like Boss had been anticipating. The swirling in Boss’ own head had started to calm down, the world taking on a more stable, coherent edge where he could think almost clearly. He was mostly thinking about how sharp Johnny’s cheekbones looked in this lighting, the shadows pooling around his eyes. It was just an idle observation, he liked to believe.

“Everything with you is fun,” Boss said, possibly sarcastically, but like even he himself didn’t know how sincere he was.

Johnny snorted, looked away from Boss for a second, tried to brush it off like a joke and then realised he wasn’t sure if the Boss had been joking. He didn’t know if he wanted the Boss to be joking. He didn’t know what anything meant anymore, looking back to the Boss and seeing that the Boss’ heavy-lidded eyes were still fixed on him, lips slightly parted and unsmiling, a distant look to his face. Their cheeks could have been flushed from alcohol or it could have been something else and Johnny’s dream came rushing back to him all at once, sudden enough for him not to repress all thought of it immediately. Involuntarily his cock twitched, almost but not quite starting to get hard at the memory of it. He rolled over, turning his back to the Boss like that was going to hide his embarrassment.

“What?” Boss said, voice edged with thinly veiled hurt. Coughed, like it had been nothing but a catch in his throat. “What?” He repeated, the steadiness of his voice incredibly artificial.

“I’m tired,” Johnny said.

* * *

When the Boss woke up his head was pounding, throat raw. It was pitch black and dead silent inside his room. Even the music and noise of Purgatory had died down to nothing. His internal body clock told him it was Fuck Off Ridiculous A.M. and he fumbled in the darkness for his phone to confirm this suspicion. His hand took hold of someone else’s leg and he jerked into alertness with the realisation Johnny was passed out beside him. He nervously withdrew his hand to his own trouser pocket, hearing Johnny grumble something inaudible but not fully wake up. Boss pulled out his phone, the screen confirming his suspicions, the tiny blue digits telling him it was quarter to five in the morning.

With the sudden rude intrusion of harsh bright light, combined with being unexpectedly grabbed, Johnny woke up. It took him a while to realise where he was, staring out through glasses that now sat sloped uncomfortably on the diagonal into nothing but a wall of dark. He rolled over onto his back, looking at the Boss sitting up against the headboard to his left, face illuminated by his phone. It wasn’t an angle that suited him, but he looked apologetic rather than menacing in the poor under-lighting. Johnny’s mouth was dry and his head was dizzy. He pulled himself upwards, feeling unpleasantly sweaty. He took off his shirt, trying to free himself from what felt like a cage of sweat-stained cloth.

“Why’d you wake me up?” He said, remembering the touch.

“Accident,” Boss grunted. Pause. “Does it still hurt?”

“What? You touching my leg?”

“No asshole, here.”

He put his left hand over Johnny’s leg, on the knee, leaning in closer. He was bent over Johnny now, looking down at him, one hand still on his leg. Close.

“Sometimes,” Johnny said.

He wanted a drink. Water this time. He didn’t know why he was awake. He watched Boss and Boss stared back at him, pale eyes soft with sleep. Dreams were plaguing him. Boss wasn’t holding his gaze consistently, his eyes slipping down to look over Johnny’s arms and torso — the tattoos, the muscle, the jagged scar across his abs. The defined line of his hips. Boss swallowed hard. Johnny was propped up on one elbow, looking up at Boss sitting bolt-upright against the headboard. His free hand drifted — deliberately casual — over his crotch, resting there. He wanted to know if Boss would notice.

Boss did. He said nothing. He could feel his own heart in his throat. If there was something he would never admit to thinking about, it was this exact scenario. Johnny there on his bed, half-naked, looking up at him. Focused on him. One of Boss’ hands skittered closer to Johnny’s arm, their hands almost but not quite touching. Johnny moved his hand away. He didn’t want that, to hold hands. That was something else. Boss retracted his hands, pulled his arms into a fold, reticent. He wasn’t willing to make the first move, to keep pushing. It felt like there was too much at stake.

“You don’t have to stop,” Johnny said. “Touching me.”

Boss wasn’t sure he was still breathing. He moved his hand up, onto Johnny’s knee. Then sliding down his thigh, lower and lower, until he reached Johnny’s own hand, watching Johnny’s face the whole time, waiting for everything to suddenly explode into anger and misunderstanding. It didn’t. Johnny held Boss’ hand there, grinding his hips against Boss’ touch, letting him feel his cock through his clothes. Boss moved his hand again, feeling around for the fly on Johnny’s trousers, trying to slip his hand under the waistband.

“I can’t see shit,” Boss complained.

“Turn a light on,” Johnny said. They were still only lit by Boss’ phone, a faint sliver of blue-tinted light in the blackness. All Boss could see was what was right next to him; the curve of Johnny’s arm, the edge of his waist, a slight glimmer of reflection off his glasses.

Boss pulled away momentarily, slapping around futilely until he found the light switch, turning on one of the huge lights that hung down by the bed. It was brighter than Johnny had been prepared for, blinking in momentary shock. In the new light Boss could see him fully, covered in a light sheen of sweat, hair a mess He looked rough, but it suited him. The Boss leant over Johnny, unbuttoning his pants, tugging them down enough to reveal his cock pressing against the material of his boxers. Boss pulled his cock free, then hesitated.

“Eight,” Boss said in agreement to a joke Johnny had cracked so long ago it took him a while to work out what the fuck Boss was talking about.

“Like you said,” Johnny said. “Can’t lie for shit.”

Boss gave him a look and Johnny shrugged, losing a lot of interest in talking. Boss’ hand was firmly around his cock now, and that was attracting most of his attention. Boss lowered his head, opening his mouth just enough to take the tip of his dick in his mouth, moving slowly, taking his sweet fucking time with it. He still had one hand at the base of Johnny’s cock but the other was thrust down the front of his own jeans, feeling himself through his shorts. He was already hard and already desperate to do something about it. No patience. Maybe that was a bad thing.

He moved his head down, Johnny’s cock pushing deeper into his throat. He went slowly, trying not to choke, letting himself relax. Above him he heard Johnny exhale softly, a shuddering sigh, trying to restrain a groan. It spurred him on a bit, Johnny’s obvious pleasure, a sense of gratification. A hand pushed under the stupid beanie he wore constantly, brushing it aside so Johnny could take hold of his head, fingers clenched in his hair. Boss moved with Johnny’s hand, moving head up and down, letting Johnny push deeper until he had to pull back, taking a breath.

Johnny was watching him under half-closed eyes, lips parted, tongue between teeth, face flushed. He tried to look cool, looking away from Boss and running a hand through his own hair. Boss found it almost cute. He was getting to Johnny. It was so rare to see him not veiled in a cool facade. He didn’t know if he liked it or not.

Johnny pulled him up then, and for a second Boss thought they were going to kiss before Johnny pushed him down on the bed instead, leaving him lying flat on his back. He let Johnny pull his jeans down, hooking down his pants with them, leaving him in nothing but his tank top and chains. He was hard, almost felt embarrassed about it, how desperate he had to seem. When Johnny looked him over for a second too long he felt the embarrassment rising, a fear he was being perceived as not good enough.

“You have a fuckin’ stud in your dick,” Johnny said, clearly amused by this observation.

“You going to do something about it?” Boss said, a little over-defensive.

Johnny stared. “No,” he said. “I’m… Really not.”

“Shut up.”

“ ‘You gonna do something about it’. Fucking hell Boss.” Johnny was barely restraining laughter.

“Shut up!”

Johnny was lazily jerking himself off, hand rubbing at his own cock, swollen and beading pre-cum at the tip. He was grinning a slanted knife-slash smile, like he’d just told a joke he was real proud of and it didn’t matter if anyone else got it. It reminded Boss of the old days. Just needed a splatter of posters of his ex-girlfriend in the background — oh no, now that didn’t bear thinking about. Boss crushed that idea and grinned back. Johnny always was good at making him smile. The best.

Johnny knelt, taking Boss’ cock in his hand. He looked a little hesitant, eventually opening his mouth and lowering his head over the Boss’ dick. Almost immediately Boss felt the edge of Johnny’s teeth and jerked back instinctively, shooting Johnny a wounded, betrayed look.

“Be fucking careful!” Boss said.

Johnny glared, said nothing. He tried again, pushed his head down, and succeeded in triggering his gag reflex. He pulled back, trying not to too obviously retch. Boss watched with barely concealed dismay. This wasn’t how it went in his head.

“You’ve had your dick sucked before,” Boss said. “You remember that.”

“That was a lot easier,” Johnny said. He seemed genuinely embarrassed by this, his embarrassment turning quickly into anger.

He tried again, mouth too wet and tongue limp and useless in his mouth like a numb arm. It was about all Boss could do not to pat Johnny on the head and tell him he was a sweetheart for trying. Johnny looked up at Boss and found that he was being looked at less lustfully and more with pity, like watching a puppy trying to walk for the first time. He pulled away from Boss and stood instead, looking down at him.

“That wasn’t great,” the Boss said, not able to stop himself from grinning.

“Shut up,” Johnny said, low in his throat. He let one hand drift down Boss’ side slowly, over his ribs and waist, down to his hips and thigh. He stopped then, letting the hand slip down between Boss’ legs.

“There’s uh,” Boss found it was hard to speak all of a sudden, his mirth replaced with a tense anticipation that made it hard to string words together. “Lube in the drawer there.”

Johnny smiled again. There was a pang in Boss’ chest that — had he been someone who would willingly admit to having the weakness that was emotions — he could call his heart fluttering.

Johnny stepped away to find the lube, leaving Boss lying on his back, staring at the end of the bed and trying not to think. It was a deliberate conscious effort. Don’t think. Just go with this. Consequences were not something Boss had ever spent a lot of his time worrying about and he sure as hell wasn’t about to let the fear of them bother him now.

Still, he had never really expected it to come to this. It seemed like Johnny actually knew what he was doing when it came to using the lube, which was a relief. Bad blow jobs were one thing but taking eight inches dry was an entirely different situation. Johnny had one hand back on Boss’ hip while the other worked, holding onto him just tight enough that he was sure it was going to leave a mark. Boss was skinny under the baggy clothes. As tough as he was, it wasn’t impossible to make him bruise. It was alright if Johnny did he thought — he trusted Johnny enough for that.

“You gonna fuck me any time soon?” Boss said. Johnny looked at him, a little surprised. He scoffed, shaking his head.

“Alright,” he said, like he’d accepted a dare.

He grabbed Boss by the knees and yanked him forwards, pulling him closer and dragging sheets along with him, putting Boss’ legs around his waist. He ripped open a condom packet with his teeth — it was completely unnecessary, he just wanted Boss to see him do it — and rolled it on.

He was being slow on purpose. Achingly slowly pressing the tip of his cock into Boss in a way that was so agonisingly drawn-out that Boss could have screamed. That was probably the reason Johnny was doing it. He pushed deeper inside Boss, watching Boss carefully the whole time, measuring up his reactions. Either he was growing impatient or he clearly wasn’t getting the reaction he wanted because he thrust harder then, deeper. Boss tried not to moan. He almost didn’t want to give Johnny the satisfaction so soon. He looked at Johnny, found Johnny staring right back at him. He considered saying something but there was nothing that really needed to be said.

Johnny thrust deeper, Boss’ back involuntarily arching with the movement. His legs were still around Johnny’s waist and he pulled them tighter, pulled Johnny in closer. They were starting to move in a rhythm, move as one, hard and fast and instinctual. They knew how to fight together and in the same way they knew how to fuck; it worked, Johnny and the Boss. It made a kind of sense.

Johnny had moved up onto the bed with the Boss, putting their heads together. Boss had his arms around him — he wasn’t really sure when he’d done that — fingernails against Johnny’s back, holding him as close as he could. Johnny kept himself propped up on his elbows and knees, kept his head up and away, never brought them in that final inch. He didn’t kiss Boss, he was close enough that Boss could feel the heat of his skin, see sweat beading on his forehead, but they never kissed. It didn’t matter. It didn’t matter whether or not you kissed when you have someone’s dick eight inches deep. That’s what was easier to think.

He dug his fingernails deeper into Johnny’s back, heard Johnny groan again, his face buried in the crook of Boss’ neck, breath burning cold against Boss’ skin. He had his eyes closed, Boss realised, teeth scraping a little at the side of Boss’ neck but then pulling back, not leaving any kind of mark anyone else could see. This was between the two of them.

Johnny was thrusting slower now, building up to the end, one hand on Boss’ own cock, trying to bring him to the edge too. Boss didn’t want it to be over yet, didn’t want to lose the feeling of Johnny inside him, on top of him, the two of them working together like this. But he could feel the heat rising in his own chest. He couldn’t hold back, the rush to the end. Could hear Johnny panting, his arms shuddering and chest heaving.

Johnny came first, all forced quiet and lost breath. If he was disappointed by this order of events he made no sign of it, just worked on bringing Boss to his own climax. Boss came in a breathless flurry of sweat and wordless groans that could have been ‘Johnny’ but definitely weren’t.

Johnny collapsed then, laying on top of him, head turned away so Boss had a faceful of black and white spikes, his shoulder tucked uncomfortable under Boss’ chin, arm stretched out across him. Neither of them spoke for a while, Boss waiting for his heart to stop pounding and breath to come back to him. He noticed, slowly, that Johnny was shaking. He looked to him and when Johnny lifted his head he realised he was laughing.

“This is so fucked,” Johnny said. He was laughing but it was unsettling in some intangible sense. He rolled off the Boss, rolled over so his back was to him. He was still laughing.

“What?” The Boss said.

“This is so fucked,” he said again. He looked at Boss for the first time in a while. He looked tired.

“Yeah,” Boss agreed, instinctively.

Johnny shut his eyes again.

* * *

Boss woke up with dirty sheets and a bad case of dry mouth. He looked up, saw Johnny already getting dressed on the other side of the room, buttoning up his shirt like he’d just realised he was late for a very important meeting. He froze when he saw Boss had woken up, mouth open like the perfect excuse he’d been working on had just up and died on him. Boss sat up.

“I gotta get going,” Johnny said, voice unusually quiet, held back. Head down and reserved.

“Yeah, of course,” Boss said, unfocused. You could have driven a truck through the pause that was left. Boss hoped it would fucking run him over.

“I was so drunk last night,” Johnny said, like the beginning of a joke, the kind of hilarious story you told to friends you didn’t really know and didn’t really like to make them think you were cool. Johnny didn’t need to spin a story to make Boss like him. Boss didn’t need to be convinced. But that wasn’t going to stop Johnny from trying.

“Yeah,” Boss said, with what could probably be labeled as a laugh. “Me too.”

“We… I…” Johnny wasn’t talking like himself. Boss hadn’t really ever seen him like this before, so lost for words and uncertain of himself. Normally Johnny knew what he wanted to say or he didn’t say anything at all. He never forced himself to make up bullshit like this. It was fucking infuriating. “I was drunk.”

It was obvious what this meant, really. We made a mistake. If I was thinking clearly and reasonably, I would not do this again. I was behaving stupidly. It wasn’t my fault.

“Maybe we shouldn’t talk about it,” Boss said.

“Ever,” Johnny said in a punch to the gut that took Boss by surprise despite how obviously it had been broadcasted.

Boss stepped off the bed. Johnny stopped, looking at him, then swallowed hard and looked back to his shoes. He had nothing worth saying. He looked like a scolded child waiting to be freed from the headmaster’s office.

“Catch you later Boss,” he said with faltering confidence. And then he fled, barely coming short of sprinting for the door, like he was scared Boss was going to lunge across the room for him.

The door clattered shut behind him and Boss was left standing wearing a perfect pattern of bruises down his hips and the smell of Johnny’s shitty cheap cologne all over his skin. There was a feeling in his stomach like the opposite of sickness, like the opposite of the hot burn of acid. A nothing.

It was stupid, to feel like this. To feel anything at all about it. Sex was sex. They were drunk. They had been drunk. Of course it hadn’t meant anything. Why the hell would it? He didn’t know why he felt like this and it was making him angry, a black cloud of confusion and frustration he couldn’t unpick and knew was going to be taken out on everyone else. Maybe it was time for another beer. Or a drive-by.

* * *

Johnny walked into the Red Light loft and very soon found himself sitting on the floor. He was mostly thinking about whether or not he should get some food, and if he needed to swing by Friendly Fire any time soon, but those thoughts felt bizarrely distant and disconnected, like they were part of a tape playing on a jukebox in another room. The rest of his mind was occupied by the heavy pain of a hangover. It was a dull kind of pain, not sharp spikes of cramps racking his mind but a constant and unrelenting throbbing that was beginning to become borderline unbearable.

Normally he believed in powering through a hangover — real men didn’t cry about getting headaches — but this was becoming overwhelming, the numb pain drowning out any kind of higher thought and leaving him only able to think about stopping this headache before… Before what? Before it spread? Like an infection, creeping through the rest of his body until it reached his heart?

A quick scan of his belongings offered up nothing. He surveyed his limited collection of items on display and found nothing useful. So he turned instead to the cabinets in the kitchenette, sorting through bowls and plates and stale boxes of cereal and bags of chips that had been lying abandoned for weeks. And there wasn’t anything there so the search turned from experimental to violent, pulling things out of the cupboards and scattering them carelessly across the ground like the fabled painkillers were being hidden from him somehow.

The pain had blossomed now, tendrils of it extending out of his brain and beginning to scratch against the inside of his skull like the branches of a tree on a window at night.

He yanked a drawer out of a cabinet, pulling it so it came clear of the cabinet, upended the drawer on the floor. A collection of miscellaneous cutlery bounced out and scattered across the ground, but nothing that was going to be helpful to him now. He ripped open the safe, pulled open a door on the cupboard so sharply the hinge snapped off, kicked the gun crate open and let the guns spill across the floor like so much deadly dropped pasta.

There was a handgun in the safe. The Boss’ gold-plated GDHC .50 he thought idly, remembering it from the days when they were Playa and they were a long sight from being in charge. Some stupid kid Julius and Troy had found on the street, too scared to open his mouth and willing to take orders from anyone who seemed like they were in charge. If those fucking traitors had done anything right, it was scoop that kid off the street.

The pain had spread.

* * *

“Are you listening to me?”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“Then what are you going to do?”

“What, I have to decide right now?”

“I thought we were going to all talk about it. And where the hell is Johnny?”

“How should I know?”

“Well, when was the last time you saw Johnny?”

“I don’t know, like three days ago?”

“Th-three days ago? Are you serious, Boss?”

“Yes? What the fuck is your deal, Pierce?”

Pierce stared at Boss in silent disbelief, turning to Shaundi. She shook her head, not looking up from whatever the hell it was she was doing on her laptop. Boss resented the feeling that he was being judged.

“He’s supposed to be one of your lieutenants,” Pierce said. “And you don’t care if he’s doing his job at all.”

“Obviously he’s doing his job because the city’s still fucking ours, isn’t it?” Boss said.

Boss’ interest in moving from his spot on the couch in Purgatory was extremely limited. He’d worn a nice comfortable spot for himself and Pierce could stand behind him and splutter all he liked, he wasn’t going anywhere. He took a swig from the bottle of beer he was holding and waited for Pierce to fucking give up already. Annoyingly, he didn’t.

“What do you want Pierce?” Boss said.

“I wanna know what the hell is up with you for a start,” Pierce said.

“Nothing,” Boss said, pulling a face like this was an absurd statement based on nothing but the wildest assumptions.

“I gotta be honest Boss,” Shaundi said, “you have been a little…”

“Furious,” Pierce said.

“Yeah,” Shaundi said. “For a long time.”

“I’m fine,” Boss said.

Not even the Saints eavesdropping from the sofa next to them bought that, one of them raising his eyebrows in a silent statement of protest made by someone who knew they had absolutely no right to make any kind of comment but really, really wanted to. The Boss ignored them as well, because acknowledging they existed at all was giving them more than they deserved.

“Bullshit,” Shaundi said. Boss tried to give her a hard look but she was visibly unimpressed by this. He wasn’t sure when he’d stopped being scary to the people who worked for him but it had been sometime after they’d stopped being ‘lieutenants’ and started being ‘friends’. A dangerous line to cross. No wonder Julius had always drawn it so clearly.

Thinking about Julius wasn’t putting him in a better frame of mind. Thinking about the old days, before he was in charge and before he’d gone and done something really stupid like having sex with his best friend.

Thinking about that made his mood worsen even further, if that was somehow possible. Pierce and Shaundi noticed, although they couldn’t trace the exact trigger. They looked at him with a kind of blank inquisitiveness that made him want to pointlessly lash out. It was a step too close to asking him to open up and he didn’t need that kind of pointless bullshit in his life.

“You know, I saw Johnny last night,” one of the Saints on the other couch said. Boss turned a death glare on him that made him shrink back against the sofa like a purple-clad woodlouse.

“Where?” Shaundi said, ignoring Boss’ attempt to murder the kid.

“He was at Technically Legal,” the kid offered, “until like, closing. I was there to pick my sister up after work and he was only just leaving then, man. He looked really fucked up. I didn’t say anything to him because… Uh… Yeah.”

The story dried up in the kid’s throat as Boss stood up from the couch and for a very real minute the boy believed he was going to die.

“Look, you go see this Eric Gryphon asshole if you want, but don’t expect me to be there,” Boss said to Pierce. “I don’t care what anyone from Ultor has to offer and make that fucking clear to him.”

He began walking away from them, hands crammed into his pockets, slouching out of the club like he didn’t even own the place.

“Where are you going?” Shaundi said. “You really ain’t gonna see what Gryphon has to say?”

“Freckle Bitch’s,” Boss said. “And nope.”

“Are you at least going to get me a burger?” Pierce called after him.

“Nope,” Boss said.

* * *

Johnny’s phone rang with a buzz that sounded almost angry on the wood of the tabletop. He rolled out of bed and forced himself to go and answer it, ignoring how tired he was. It was tiredness that made you heavy, made it hard to resist crumpling to the ground and just giving up on the day. But he fought through it. He was Johnny Gat after all.

“Yo,” he said, voice drawling. It almost sounded cool.

“What are you doing?” Shaundi’s voice was unexpectedly loud on the other end of the line.

“Nothing,” Johnny said.

“Did you and Boss have a fight? Because you’re acting like you just had a bad break up.”

It was a bad choice of words. Johnny gritted his teeth so hard he wouldn’t have been surprised if Shaundi heard it through the phone.

“No,” Johnny said.

“Well, whatever it is, it’s fucking everything up,” Shaundi said. “Boss is throwing a tantrum and now Pierce is meeting Eric Gryphon on his own.”

“Who the fuck is Eric Gryphon?”

“The Ultor guy? He wants to work with us? Did you forget?”

Johnny had forgotten, somehow. Or just repressed the memory of it, the concept horrified him on such a fundamental level.

“We’re not going to,” Johnny said. “Right?”

“I don’t know,” Shaundi said. “You aren’t showing up any time we try to talk about it and Boss is too busy moping to make a decision. And now Pierce is in charge.”

“Where’s Boss now?”

“Freckle Bitch’s.”

“See you, Shaundi.”

* * *

Boss stood in Mission Beach and stared at the building where the Freckle Bitch’s used to be. Once he had met Johnny and Aisha here, and it had been the first time he had felt like he had made friends in the Saints. Now Aisha was dead, Saint’s Row was dead and he hadn’t looked his best friend in the eye in three days.

He heard an engine slow and stop and glanced over his shoulder. Johnny was sitting in his car and looking up at him. Boss looked back at the spot where Freckle Bitch’s wasn’t.

“There used to be a Freckle Bitch’s here,” Boss said eventually.

“Yeah,” Johnny said. “Ultor closed it. About two years after the explosion.”

“That’s just not right,” Boss said.

“I know,” Johnny said. Boss shook his head. “You want to go to one that still exists?”

Boss walked to the passenger seat without demanding the right to drive and climbed in. Something in Johnny went very calm in that moment. He finally drove away from the middle of the road, heading out of Saint’s Row, still a dead wasteland of shiny white concrete and steel even without the ever-looming threat of Vogel.

“So we’re talking to some Ultor guy now?” Johnny said.

“He’s got information on Dex,” the Boss said.

“It better be good fucking info,” Johnny said. “I don’t want to turn into a corporate whore.”

“That’s not gonna happen,” Boss said.

Johnny drove them from Saint’s Row to the Barrio. Sommerset might have been closer but Cecil Park felt more like something they both knew.

“Ultor’s just the next fight,” Boss said eventually. “There has to be another fight.”

Johnny nodded. “Can’t let that fucker get away with what he did.”

“I don’t…” Boss’ voice trailed off, like he didn’t actually know what he had to say. He didn’t really understand what Dex was doing. It didn’t make a lot of sense to him. He just knew it made him fucking angry. “I’m going to kill him.”

“Good.”

It all felt so much simpler when it was the two of them. You could over think things to death or you could sit with Johnny Gat and know that there was nothing that couldn’t be fixed with a good shootout. Guns and murder. If only he could murder his way out of being in love with his best friend.

“How come you went to Technically Legal without me?” Boss said. It was meant to be a joke but he was suddenly afraid of being too clingy, of driving Johnny away with his need for company. Because he did need Johnny’s company. He’d always needed it, along with Johnny’s approval. He was hungry for it, in a sad, sad way that made him furious.

“We don’t need to do everything together,” Johnny said, voice suddenly a lot more angry than Boss thought Johnny had intended. “We can do our own thing.”

“I don’t want to,” Boss said.

“We aren’t attached,” Johnny said. “We aren’t brothers.”

“I don’t want to be.”

“We’re not that close.” Johnny’s voice had turned into a kind of mocking desperation, like a kid shouting ‘I know you are, but what am I?’ as he stared down the school bullies.

“That’s fucking —”

Johnny drove into the drive-through, cutting Boss off with the buzz of the speaker in a manner so obvious in its deliberateness that Boss came very close to anger. He didn’t have to ask what Boss wanted because he already knew. That felt like the breaking point of whatever already weak argument Johnny had been trying to propose. No one had believed for a minute that they weren’t that close. It was a stupid argument. It was a blatant lie.

“Don’t bullshit me Johnny,” Boss said.

Johnny didn’t say anything, drove up to the food window and took the bags like Boss hadn’t spoken at all. He dumped on the Boss’ lap and pulled out of the drive-through, not taking his eyes off the road.

“How did you know I was going to be in Saint’s Row?” Boss said.

“Shaundi said you were going to Freckle Bitch’s,” Johnny said.

“How did you know I was going to that one?”

“Because it was where we used to go.”

He said it like it was a guilty confession, like he was forcing himself to admit a grievous sin. Maybe they should have gone to Forgive & Forget instead of Freckle Bitch’s and Johnny could tell the drive-through speaker there how sorry he was for having gay sex with his friend and committing the ultimate sin of giving a shit about somebody. Boss almost wished he could have said all that instead of boring holes into the side of Johnny’s skull with his stare.

“What the fuck is your problem?” Boss said.

“What’s my problem?” Johnny said, rising to anger faster than a speeding bullet. “What’s your problem?”

“My problem’s called Johnny fucking Gat,” Boss said. “Hijo de tu puta madre.”

“You think I don’t know what that fuckin’ means?”

“Why don’t you just make something up?”

“What the fuck?”

“You decide what it meant, and then you tell me.”

“Are you trying to start shit with me?”

“Yeah Johnny, maybe I fucking am.”

Johnny kicked open his door and stormed round to the passenger seat. He pulled the door open, grabbing Boss by the front of his shirt and dragging him out of the car. The food spilled onto the ground but that was the least of Boss’ concerns because in about five seconds there was a good chance Johnny was going to make a swing for him and if that happened there was a good chance Boss was going to get his nose broken.

“Let go of me,” Boss said.

It was kind of amazing they’d never been in a fight. There’d never been a point when they’d wanted to fight. They’d never even argued.

Johnny shoved him away, sending him stumbling backwards. Boss crashed into the car, back slamming against a rear window. He bounced back, rolled forwards, shoved Johnny hard enough to make Johnny rock where he stood. Johnny just shoved him back again, Boss once again stumbling back and hitting the car. He was waiting for Johnny to hit him, Johnny was waiting for Boss to hit him, but what actually happened was Boss launched himself off the car and tackled Johnny to the ground.

Johnny shouted with anger, head rebounding off the concrete. Boss had the upper hand but he had some reluctance to hit Johnny, something holding him back that left him sitting on top of Johnny with one fist poised uselessly in the air long enough for Johnny to come back to his senses and push back against Boss. Boss hit the tarmac, Johnny rolling over on top of him, ready to slam a fist into Boss’ face.

“Fuck you!” Johnny said.

“You already did!” Boss said.

Johnny’s fist hit the concrete half a centimeter from Boss’ head. They both looked faintly astonished that he’d even tried at all, despite missing by a clear mile. Boss swung a fist upwards and this actually connected, hitting Johnny in the chin with enough force to have Johnny reeling backwards. Boss pulled himself out from under Johnny, scrambling up onto his feet. A fight with Johnny, some part of him felt, was better off being very fast. You would not beat him in an endurance test.

“You hit me,” Johnny said, standing up more slowly than Boss had.

“You tried to hit me!” Boss said.

“I missed!”

Johnny lunged forwards and managed to slam a fist into Boss’ ear, which sent something ringing inside Boss’ head.

“You didn’t miss that time!”

“Eye for an eye.”

“Oh I’ll fucking blind you alright.”

Boss’ next hit was sloppy and Johnny caught him by the wrist, yanking him forwards and sending them crashing into each other, Boss’ forehead accidentally slamming into Johnny’s nose. Johnny yelped with surprised pain, dropping Boss and clutching at his face.

“Are you ok?” Boss said.

“You’re going to blind me?” Johnny said.

“I didn’t mean it.”

“Fuck, man.”

“This is stupid.”

“No shit Boss.”

Johnny sat on the trunk of the car while Boss attempted to lamely scoop up some of the food that had rolled out of the bag and not been sullied.

“I think we can afford another burger,” Johnny said.

“We can afford another nose for you, too,” Boss said.

“Ha,” Johnny said.

Boss walked over and sat on the trunk of the car next to him, leaving the rest of the fries and the drinks scattered across the ground. He noticed the Freckle Bitch’s staff crowded around the drive-through window to watch them and felt a wave of something most people would be able to identify as ‘shame’.

“I’m sorry,” Boss said.

“Yeah, so am I.”

“This is fucked up.”

“Everything’s fucked up Boss. I don’t know what’s going on anymore. I live in your old place and we’re making deals with Ultor to hunt down our own. They’re not opening any new Freckle Bitch’s. Eesh is dead. Everything’s fucked.”

Boss put one hand on Johnny’s and squeezed. Johnny let him — no, he took Boss’ hand. Held it.

“Did you ever see me when I was in the coma?” Boss said.

“Once.”

“Only once?”

“It wasn’t you.”

Johnny’s thumb rubbed circles on the back of Boss’ hand.

“I missed you,” he said.

“Five years is a long time.”

“No,” Johnny said. “I didn’t see you for three days, and I missed you.”

“Me too.”

“I wish that was a lie.”

“Tough shit.”

Johnny laughed once, smiling at Boss again in that way that made his heart — what, flutter? Skip a beat? There were so many words for something he could barely begin to understand.

“Talking is a waste of time,” Boss said.

Johnny nodded, and then he kissed him. It was both exactly what Boss had always wanted and completely different to what he had expected, and all the better for it. He kissed Johnny back and hoped to anything and everything that this was the right thing to do.

They moved apart and Johnny nodded to himself.

“Our friendship is ruined,” he said.

“Everything’s already fucked up,” Boss said, shrugging. “Let’s fuck this up too.”

“Now that’s a plan.”

**Author's Note:**

> Writing porn is so scary.


End file.
